


Safe Place

by drpinkky



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, Jacquelyn is R, More characters to be added, im putting some of the continuity through a shredder its fine, of sorts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-16 04:43:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17542889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drpinkky/pseuds/drpinkky
Summary: Jacquelyn was safe, and the Baudelaires were not.Once, she would have done whatever she could to save them. But as the Duchess, she no longer had that option. Did she?





	1. Chapter 1

The telegram came to the Village of Fowl Devotees. It came to the village as the mob chased the Baudelaires and the Quagmires while Jacquelyn and Larry could only watch, helpless, and struggle to escape the rope tied around them. Their matching motorcycle outfits, while practical on the road, only made their efforts more difficult. Everything was just a bit too bulky to make any real headway. Jacquelyn only needed a little more slack to reach her pocket, reach her knife. A crow dropped the telegram at their feet. Jacquelyn stepped on it to keep it from flying away on an unexpected gust.

WINNIPEG

They couldn’t have known where she was. Jacquelyn purposefully kept them in the dark. It should have kept them safe.

JACQUELYN STOP

The conventions of communication by telegram read like an order. She stopped struggling with the ropes to read. 

“Jacquelyn, what’s going on?” Larry asked. He nodded toward the mob. It shrank against the sky as it chased the children. “We have to get out,”

“Stop.” Jacquelyn said. He immediately ceased his protests and his movements.

COME HOME STOP

The order pulled Jacquelyn’s heart to the floor. It settled somewhere near the paper under her shoe. 

YOUR MOTHER STOP

Jacquelyn’s fingers finally found their way to her pocket and pulled out her knife. With some effort, she opened it one handed and cut through their restraints. She picked up the telegram and folded it into her breast pocket without reading further. She swung a leg over the motorcycle seat. Larry looked at her, impressed. 

“Get on the bike.” Jacquelyn said. No room for argument. 

Larry nodded. He pulled his goggles over his eyes after he folded up into the sidecar seat. The hot air balloon rose into the sky on the horizon. Jacquelyn started the bike and turned away from the mob. 

“Jacquelyn!” Larry cried over the wind. “The children!”

Jacquelyn felt herself deflate at his concerns. She turned back to see Hector’s balloons rise high into the air. Soon after, the engine of the firetruck started. It carried the Baudelaire children into the sunset, away from the mob led by the villains. Perhaps towards somewhere safe.

“I have to return to Winnipeg,” Jacquelyn yelled back. “My mother.” _The Duchy,_ it went without saying. Jacquelyn didn’t read the entire telegram. She couldn’t. She couldn’t let herself receive the news she feared from a yellowed piece of paper. 

She couldn’t learn of her new title from that piece of paper. 

Larry reached over to rub her arm as comfortingly as he could with the wind buffeting him. 

“Are you sure they’ll be safe?”

Jacquelyn let the wind sweep away his question. She couldn’t bring herself to say the answer, the one they both knew to be the truth.

 

Jacquelyn left Larry at the Last Safe Place. He could receive further instruction there. Frank or Ernest greeted them outside the lobby with a sympathetic smile on his face. Jacquelyn silenced him with a look before he could say anything, offer any condolences. 

No news is good news, especially when it comes to something like this. As long as Jacquelyn didn’t know her mother’s status, she could keep herself together. 

Schrödinger’s Duchess. Jacquelyn couldn’t bring herself to look in the box.

She left the hotel and pointed the motorcycle toward Winnipeg.

It wasn’t that she hoped her mother was still alive. Illness took hold of her long ago. This was going to happen eventually. Jacquelyn couldn’t stand to see her mother like that, withering away when she was once so strong.

Jacquelyn should have returned to Winnipeg sooner.

She should have seen her mother more. 

She should have saved the Baudelaires when she had the chance. 

Her regrets snowballed in her mind as she made the long journey from The City to Winnipeg. Beatrice’s kids were out there, alone, and Jacquelyn was no longer in a position to help them. 

She should have stopped Olaf when he sauntered into Mr. Poe’s office.

Or when he ran into Monty’s hedge maze. 

Or on the Prospero.

One shot. 

The harpoon gun she used to threaten him sat unloaded on the floor of the sidecar. It would have been so easy to pull that trigger. 

She could have changed the Baudelaire’s file. 

Sent them to Winnipeg. 

Away from Olaf.

Away from all their misery. 

But that was then and this was now. Jacquelyn couldn’t change the past. She couldn’t tell a different story and create a happy ending for them. Wishing for one would only make reality hurt worse. Same as wishing for her mother’s wellbeing. 

 

Beatrice died months ago. So did Bertrand. Gustav and Monty, then Josephine, then Georgina. Jacques died mere days ago. His brother, meanwhile, died years ago. All of her associates. Her friends. And now her mother. 

Now more than ever, Jacquelyn needed a familiar face, but what few of those remained were tangled up in their own assignments. Maybe she shouldn’t have dumped Larry at the hotel.

None of that is to say she grieved alone. The staff of the manor welcomed her with open arms. They didn’t question it when she asked them not to call her Duchess. 

After the funeral, Jacquelyn gave herself a day to cry. One day to cry and rage and come to grips with the injustice of it all. How the death of her mother pulled her into a safe place, while Beatrice’s death sent her children into a web of danger. How she was safe and the children were not, and this time there was nothing she could do about it because she’s now the Duchess of Winnipeg and couldn’t very well abandon her post. She acknowledged each of these thoughts and more during her one day. Let herself think them. Let herself feel them. Because soon, they would only be a distraction from her new responsibilities. 

And the Duchy needed its Duchess.

Jacquelyn threw herself into her new duties as Duchess, and let them occupy her mind. Let them overwhelm any other thought. At first, it worked. Her advisors inundated her with the ins and outs of Duchesshood and diplomacy. Information came at her in waves, but as with the ocean, it ebbed and flowed. Soon, as she got used to the policies and procedures, the flood of new things turned to a trickle, and soon after that, Jacquelyn became bored.

In her boredom, her thoughts inevitably wandered back to the past. Even the dullest days at Mulctuary Money Management could not match this boredom. At least at that job, VFD was only a phone call away and she could drop everything to follow a lead on the Baudelaires. The Administrative Assistant to the Vice President of Orphan Affairs at Mulctuary Money Management could do that. The Duchess of Winnipeg could not.

Only when one is safe does one have the luxury of being bored. Jacquelyn was safe in her home, but the children she had spent so many hours trying to help were not. And she couldn’t do anything about it. She felt responsible for them during her time in The City. She would have done anything she could to help them. But that was before she became the Duchess.

After all, she couldn’t just abandon her responsibilities here, could she? 

Didn’t she abandon her responsibilities there only a few days ago?

In that case, all it took was a telegram.

Sometimes a telegram is all it takes. 

MEET ME AT THE LAST SAFE PLACE STOP

E


	2. Chapter 2

Only one person still alive had the power to summon the Duchess of Winnipeg from her palace with a one-line telegram. Only one person still alive was so self-absorbed to believe she _could_ summon the Duchess of Winnipeg from her palace with a one-line telegram. 

Jacquelyn never wanted to admit to Esmé Squalor’s magnetic pull. She’d avoided it for years, always stayed on the edge of Esmé’s reach as much as she could. Now, though, what did it matter? Now, Jacquelyn was stuck in a position she never wanted, unable to do what she needed.

The Duchy may need its Duchess, but it ran fine while her mother was bedridden. What’s a few more days gone?

One last grand adventure, Jacquelyn promised, both to the staff and to herself. Then she would settle down.

 

It doesn’t matter how she got to the hotel, only that she did. And that the trip gave her plenty of time to think. 

Esmé always preferred unannounced grand entrances to telegrams. To reach out like this must mean she was desperate. And a desperate Esmé promised an interesting time, no matter how the chips fall. 

Really, Esmé in any condition promised an interesting time. She hid her depths behind a mask of vanity, always watching, always calculating. In another life, she might have given many chess masters a run for their money. 

Undoubtedly, she could do this on her own. Or recruit someone else. But “someone else” wasn’t Jacquelyn. Esmé could read anyone at a glance, figure out what made them tick, use that against them, but those abilities could never replace years of experience with a person. And those years of experience told Jacquelyn this excursion may be a mistake. That everything could all go up in smoke.

That’s what made this all so enticing. 

 

When Jacquelyn arrived at the Hotel Denouement, Frank or Ernest greeted her with a reserved but sympathetic smile. Jacquelyn knew what was coming, but didn’t cut him off this time. 

“I did not have the opportunity last time we spoke to offer my condolences, Duchess,” he said.

“I appreciate them now,” Jacquelyn said, not about to explain her motivations. He likely understood anyway. Everyone in the organization had some experience with loss. He held the door open for Jacquelyn to enter the hotel. 

At the desk, Ernest or Frank offered Jacquelyn a kind smile and kind words about her mother, as well as her room key. As they finished their transaction, he slid a small piece of paper across to her. 

“We are _all_ so glad to have you, Duchess,” he said, and tapped on the paper. Jacquelyn picked it up.

_332_.

She nodded to Ernest or Frank and hefted her duffel bag over her shoulder. Esmé had declared it _out_ years ago, called it “horribly practical” and “the only thing worse than almanacs.” After that, Jacquelyn made it her go-to bag whenever Esmé was concerned. In the elevator, she set it on the floor and leaned against the wall. 

It felt like the old days. Covert meetings with associates with hazy allegiances, all while peril lurked just out of sight. 

Maybe she could find a way to enjoy this. 

 

Esmé answered the door to her room before Jacquelyn’s knuckles hit the wood and ushered her in with a flourish. 

“Jacquelyn, darling,” Esmé said with that all too familiar grin, “wonderful to see you! Do come in.”

Jacquelyn only stepped in as far as it took for Esmé to close the door behind her. Her suite, despite ostensibly catering to members of the accounting business, more suited a princess. Perhaps Esmé was the only one of the City’s most important financial advisors to use this place, as it so suited her tastes, all white marble and ebony furniture. 

“I see you still have that _horrendous_ bag, you can leave that by the door,” Esmé gestured to the empty corner in the entryway. She strolled across the marble floors to the bar, where she made two martinis. Jacquelyn only tightened her grip on her bag.

“What do you want, Esmé?”

“Oh, so short and to the point, Jacquelyn. You know, I’ve always loved that about you.” Esmé offered one of the martinis and motioned for Jacquelyn to join her. Jacquelyn just glared at her. “Fine, no pleasantries.” Esmé set the glass she offered to Jacquelyn on the expansive table in the middle of the room, then sank into a chaise. She sipped her drink and smiled. “You are going to get me the sugar bowl.” 

Esmé hadn’t uttered the last word before Jacquelyn turned on her heel and stepped toward the door. As she reached for the knob, Esmé cleared her throat.

“You aren’t even going to ask what’s in it for you?”

Jacquelyn’s shoulders tensed. She shouldn’t. The only way to lose to Esmé Squalor was to play her game. But she asked anyway. The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them. 

“What’s in it for me?”

She could feel Esmé’s grin. It tingled between her shoulder blades. 

“The Baudelaires.”

The duffel bag slipped through Jacquelyn’s fingers. She hung her head and sighed. Esmé’s glee became almost physical. It saturated the room and made it hard to breathe. 

Jacquelyn took a moment to collect herself. “What makes you think you can use those children as a bargaining chip?” The question bounced off the door and back over Jacquelyn’s shoulder. 

“Your reaction, darling,” Esmé purred. She had Jacquelyn backed into a corner figuratively, and they both knew it. Jacquelyn turned to find herself backed into a corner literally, as well, with Esmé looming over her. Even though she wore a pair of sensible heels, Jacquelyn still had to look up to meet Esmé’s eyes.

“What do you say?” 

“I’ll help you.” Esmé’s grin resembled that of the Cheshire Cat more with each passing second. “As long as you promise not to harm a hair on any of their heads. And you leave us alone once this is all over.”

Esmé laughed, not quite maniacally. “She thinks they’re going to be one big happy family after this! How sweet,”

Jacquelyn didn’t respond to the goad. Instead, she offered her hand. 

“Deal?”

“Deal.” Esmé shook on it, then used her grip to lead Jacquelyn further into the hotel room. 

“I’m honored to work with you, Duchess,” Esmé said, to test the waters, see which buttons she could press. All she ever did was press buttons. Press buttons and wait for something to explode. The way she said the title, like it was something shiny to show off, like it fundamentally changed the person who held it in some way, sent a jolt of contempt through Jacquelyn. She pulled her hand from Esmé’s and walked to the table without her. 

“You’ll lose that honor,” Jacquelyn said with a curl of her lip, “if you keep _that_ up.” 

The threat carried no weight, but Esmé still rolled her comment back quickly. She switched topics gracefully, explained the basics of the heist quickly. As she spoke, Jacquelyn took the abandoned martini, if only to have something to occupy her hands. 

“Any questions?” Esmé asked as she wrapped up. Jacquelyn nodded.

“What happened to Olaf?”

Turns out, Esmé wasn’t the only one who could push buttons. Jacquelyn smirked as Esmé tried to retain composure to hide her intense fury. She settled on a sneer, but she couldn’t mask the dangerous shine in her eyes.

“Idiot boyfriends who don’t participate in your perfectly plotted plans are _out_ ,” she hissed.

Jacquelyn nodded. She was half tempted to ask what was _in_ , except for how a question like that could give Esmé a leg up in the conversation. Instead, she turned to the blueprints rolled out over the large table. Esmé’s heels clacked across the room, away from Jacquelyn as she set to work.

She spent several minutes reacquainting herself with the layout of the hotel, not that she needed an in-depth study session on it. After all, a decent portion of her training as a child happened within the many rooms of the Hotel Denouement. No, she needed the time to gather her thoughts, and the longer Esmé believed she was absorbed in the intricacies of the building, the longer she had to think. The next day wouldn’t afford such luxuries as thinking time. She had until the meeting on Thursday to find the sugar bowl, and any distraction was a danger. 

The click of Esmé’s heels against the marble floor as she paced around the room was one such distraction. Jacquelyn ignored it for as long as she could, then whirled around to face her hostess. 

“Why are you still here?” She snapped. Esmé stopped mid-step and turned to face Jacquelyn.

“My room, darling,” she said simply. True, but if she wanted to let Jacquelyn get anything done, she needed to leave. “But, I suppose I do want to know something,” she said after a pause. She took four long strides, directly into Jacquelyn’s personal space. “Why did they, of all the orphans in the world, keep you here?”

Jacquelyn set her jaw. Esmé’s eyes lit up. She knew she found another button, and she was going to press hard. 

“They’re just children,” 

Esmé laughed. She grabbed Jacquelyn’s forearm and squeezed. From anyone else, it would have been a friendly gesture. “Oh, Jacquelyn, I forgot how _funny_ you are,” she wiped a pretend tear from her eye. “You know, I had a whole bag of orphans you could say that about? Where were you then?”

“My mother’s funeral,” Jacquelyn snapped, in spite of herself. She had no way to know if the events coincided, but she wanted to end this conversation before Esmé could go any farther. 

“Poor dear,” Esmé patted Jacquelyn’s shoulder. “But you haven’t answered my question. How are the Baudelaires different? How are they different from the Quagmires, or that _dreadful_ librarian, or any of the other orphans in this City?” She leaned forward, and Jacquelyn had to lean back to keep them from touching. A sinister smile split Esmé’s face. “How are they different from you, or me, or anyone else involved in this Schism?”

Jacquelyn tried to formulate a response, but nothing came out. She couldn’t validate Esmé’s point, but objectively, she was right. The Baudelaire children were the same as anyone else wrapped up in VFD, with one exception.

“It’s Beatrice, isn’t it?” Esmé asked, her voice deadly quiet. Jacquelyn closed her eyes and sighed.

“Come on, say it.”

Jacquelyn pushed Esmé away, if only to have some breathing room. “Yes, Esmé, you’re right. I want to help them because they’re Beatrice’s children. Are you happy?” She opened her eyes to see Esmé’s glittering in victory. She still stood too close for comfort, but at least she stood up straight. 

“Oh, very!” Esmé cried. “Look at you, dropping that selfless façade all you stuffy volunteers wear! Selfishness looks good on you, darling.”

“Just wait until the readers of _The Daily Punctilio_ hear about that,” Jacquelyn bit out. There was no point in protest now. Esmé snorted.

Jacquelyn couldn’t save Beatrice. The least she could do was save her children. 

“Are you done now? Or are you just going to keep bothering me?” 

“I suppose I am,” Esmé sighed, “done now, that is.” She didn’t move. “Just one more thing,”

“What?” Jacquelyn snapped. She dug her fingernails into her palms and took a deep breath. Anything to keep her cool, to not push Esmé aside and just leave.

Esmé tapped her temple with a perfectly manicured nail. “How will you tell the orphans what you did for them?”

Anger and fear shot through Jacquelyn’s body. She leaned up, very nearly onto her tiptoes, to get into Esmé’s face. “They will never know.”

“So you’re just going to keep lying to them?” 

Esmé was in no position to lecture on that subject, but the comment took Jacquelyn off guard. Before she could respond, however, the door slammed open. A girl dressed in bright pink stormed in, clearly fuming about something. Her red ringlet curls bounced as she stomped. 

“Mommy!” She cried, then stopped as she realized they had a guest. Her entire demeanor changed immediately, to one of curious delight. “Do I have two mommies now?” Jacquelyn marveled at the child’s inability to read the animosity between them.

“No, darling,” Esmé rushed to the girl and swept her up in a hug. “You remember what Mommy said about families, Carmelita?”

“That a family is a mommy and a daddy and their super cute, super special daughter?” 

“Exactly.” 

Carmelita furrowed her brow. “But if Countie’s gone, how are we still a family?”

Esmé opened her mouth to explain, but Jacquelyn spoke over her. “Your mother is wrong and she was wrong to tell you that. Families can come in many forms. A family can be two mommies and their daughter. A family can be a single mommy and her daughter. A family is made up of people who love and care for one another. The reason why you do not have two mommies is that I neither love nor care for your mother.” 

Esmé, so unused to such blatant contradiction, gaped at Jacquelyn. Satisfied with the impact of her words, Jacquelyn gathered the documents on the table and headed for the door. She only paused to pick up her duffel bag, and then she was free.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on twitter at drpinkky  
> I'm on tumblr at drpinkky and lesbianscieszka 
> 
> *Final Pam voice* I take hammer and FIX the story


End file.
